Hunters harvested an estimated 376,810 white-tailed deer, according to Pennsylvania Game Commission results reported for 2021-22 deer season which ended in January. The statewide buck harvest was estimated at 145,320 and the antlerless harvest at 231,490.
That take, overall, is down about 13% compared to 2020-21, when hunters recorded the largest deer harvest in 16 years, harvesting an estimated 435,180 deer. However, it is similar to the estimated statewide deer harvests during the 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons.
That’s not cause for concern, said David Stainbrook, deer and elk section supervisor. The 2020-21 season was above average, and the 2021-22 season is on track with previous years.
Twenty-two percent of hunters took an antlered deer, he noted. That’s in line with the previous four-year average and better than in years past.
In the 1987-88 season, for example, just 16% of hunters harvested an antlered deer. In the 2007-08 season, only 15% filled a tag.
“When corrected by the number of hunters, success rates are higher today than in the past, even with antler-point restrictions,” Stainbrook said. “That our hunters are able to replicate that level of harvest speaks to just how sustainable our deer population is here in Pennsylvania.”
The harvest also points to how antlerless allocations–and not length of seasons–drive deer harvests. The 2021 firearms deer season featured two weeks of concurrent buck and doe hunting for the first time statewide in more than a decade, yet with the number of antlerless tags available down compared to the year before, the overall harvest was lower.
Of the deer taken by hunters, many of the bucks harvested were older; 62% of antlered deer taken by hunters were 2.5 years old or older; only 38% were 1.5 years old.
That’s an almost complete reversal of how things were two decades ago, according to Game Commission Executive Director Bryan Burhans, crediting how hunters have embraced antler restrictions, in place since 2002.
Meanwhile, 25% of antlerless tags issued resulted in a deer harvest this past season. Among antlerless deer harvested, 69% were adult females, 16% button bucks and 15% doe fawns. All of those figures are consistent with long-term averages.
As in years past, bowhunters accounted for a little over one-third of the total deer harvest, taking 130,650 whitetails (68,580 bucks and 62,070 antlerless deer) with either bows or crossbows. The 2020-21 archery harvest was 160,480 deer (80,130 bucks and 80,350 antlerless deer).
The estimated muzzleloader harvest was 21,060 (1,020 bucks, 20,040 antlerless deer). The 2020-21 muzzleloader harvest was 28,260 (1,140 bucks, 27,120 antlerless deer).
For total deer harvest estimates by WMU for 2021-22 (with 2020-21 figures in parentheses), click here.